Nobel Prize Oct. 12, Michigan Vote Jan. 15 Could Vault Gore to Presidency
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Al Gore - When he won the Oscar for "An Inconvenient Truth."
Poor old battered, forgotten Al Gore may get new life soon.
And he may drag Michigan along with him to the front of the pack.
Mr. Gore, who many think actually won the 2004 election but was snubbed 5-4 by the Supreme Court, may yet find redemption, according to his backers in Michigan.
Bob Alexander, Lansing, co-chair of the Michigan Draft Gore movement along with Doug Kelley of Ann Arbor, are out with a petition drive to get 12,000 plus signers to put Gore on the Jan. 15 primary ballot.
Polls show Gore beating Hilary Clinton 36 percent to 32 percent in Michigan, and that's before the winners of the Nobel Prize are announced Oct. 12 (this Friday) in Oslo, Norway. Mr. Gore has been nominated for his work to control global warming and is considered by some observers to be a front-runner for the prestigious prize.
The Sydney (Australia) Morning Herald is out on a limb quoting a prediction of the prize to Gore: "Key Nobel watcher Stein Toennesson, director of the International Peace Research Institute, predicts the climate change campaigner will win the coveted prize.
"This year, with world attention fixed on global warming, Mr. Toennesson said giving a joint prize to Mr Gore and Canadian Inuit environmental activist Sheila Watt-Cloutier might be an appealing choice for the prize committee."
"It would have to do with climate change and it would be a prize that included both a man and a woman," he said.
Two members of the Norwegian parliament have nominated Gore jointly with Ms. Watt-Cloutier, a member of the Inuit native tribe in Canada. She has campaigned in the Artic Region to draw attention to the dangerous effects of precipitate climate change.
Gore, the former U.S. vice president, would be honored for his documentary film "An Inconvenient Truth", a personal jeremiad against global environmental catastrophe.
"This is clearly some of the most import conflict prevention work that is being done," said Heidi Soerensen, a Socialist Left Member of the Norwegian Parliament who nominated Gore and Watt-Cloutier last February.
"One hundred million climate refugees, major changes in drinking water supplies and a reduction in biological diversity ... will rapidly become a major security threat," co-nominator Boerge Brende, of the Conservative party, told a Norwegian newspaper.
If Gore doesn't win the Nobel Prize . . . well, he's been there before, too, and knows the ropes leading to the brink of defeat.
Gore not entirely jocularly introduces the film: "I used to be the next President of the United States."
If the improbable happens, Gore will flash onto the Michigan ballot, leapfrog over Ms. Clinton, Barack Obama and other Democratic candidates and dash into the November, 2008 general election against . . .???
We really thought Newt Gingrich would have made an attractive Republican nominee, but the Newtster bailed out last week, short of money, time and supporters, along, apparently, with insufficient fire in the belly.
Too bad, he might have had a chance in a herd of elephants that all pretty much look alike. In fact, he would have shone with his communication skills and keen political insight, although Mike Huckabee of Arkansas is also a bright light for the GOP, in this columnist's humble opinion.
It's hard to imagine a politician who has a big head of steam, like Gore may have after Friday, turning down a twice-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be President.
Power corrupts, and political lust corrupts absolutely, to paraphrase Lord Acton, or some other quotable notable who articulated a truism that stands the test of time.
The most improbable situation is that Michigan may be in the driver's seat in grabbing influence in determining the next President of the U.S.
An afterthought for years, Michigan's Democrats and Republicans came together (I am not making this up) to craft a plan for the nation's first, or nearly the first, Presidential primary.
Al Gore in the White House, perish the thought say conservatives, who may consider the unthinkable to be preferable to the alternative -- Hilary.
Poor old Michigan, that is having trouble agreeing to keep its rest areas open, may get a new boost in national self esteem if Al rides into the race on Jan. 15.
All eyes will be on the state that is a nervous wreck of partisan wrangling over, well, quite small matters.
Gov. Jennifer Granholm has a new way of defining the cost of keeping the state afloat: $1 a week per person for a family of four with annual income of $50,000.
If Al decides to run it may be a little touchy at the Gore-Clinton reunions forever after, but Al no doubt would be wise enough to hire Bill as U.N. ambassador and Hilary as, who knows, Secretary of State?
Whatever happens, the next year may be entertaining, if nothing else, if Al decides to shock the nation and try to snatch victory out of the jaws of defeat.
After all, he may decide he can do more to address global warming from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue than from a farm in Tennessee.###
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